Themes: Intelligence Knowledge Meaning Religion Ethics/Morality Happiness Intelligence and Rationality Behind every argument is someone's ignorance. -Louis D. Brandeis Sorrow is knowledge, those that know the most must mourn the deepest, the tree of knowledge is not the tree of life. -Lord Byron Common sense is the best distributed commodity in the world, for every man is convinced that he is well supplied with it. -Descartes For in much wisdom is much grief: and he that increaseth knowledge increaseth sorrow. -Ecclesiastes 1:18 Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former. -Einstein The intelligent man finds almost everything ridiculous, the sensible man almost nothing. -Von Goethe Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know. -Hemingway An intelligent man is sometimes forced to be drunk to spend time with his fools. -Hemingway It is hard enough to remember my opinions, without also remembering my reasons for them! -Nietzsche How is it that a lame man does not annoy us while a lame mind does? Because a lame man recognizes that we are walking straight, while a lame mind says that it is we who are limping. -Pascal The biggest cause of trouble in the world today is that the stupid people are so sure about things and the intelligent folks are so full of doubts. -Russell That which the Fascists hate above all else, is intelligence. -Unamuno Education is an admirable thing. But it is well to remember that nothing that is worth knowing can be taught. -Wilde Public opinion exists only where there are no ideas. -Wilde One should respect public opinion in so far as is necessary to avoid starvation and to keep out of prison, but anything that goes beyond this is voluntary submission to an unnecessary tyranny. -Russell There is much to be said in favor of modern journalism. By giving us the opinions of the uneducated, it keeps us in touch with the ignorance of the community. -Wilde Nature shows that with the growth of intelligence comes increased capacity for pain, and it is only with the highest degree of intelligence that suffering reaches its supreme point. -Arthur Schopenhauer A man who does not think for himself does not think at all. -Wilde Knowledge and Reality If you would be a real seeker after truth, you must at least once in your life doubt, as far as possible, all things. -Descartes Philosophy begins when one learns to doubt-particularly to doubt one's cherished beliefs, one's dogmas and one's axioms. -Durant A mind once stretched by new thoughts can never regain its original shape. -Einstein I must find a truth that is true for me. -Kierkegaard What the philosophers say about Reality is often as disappointing as a sign you see in a shop window which reads: Pressing Done Here. If you brought your clothes to be pressed, you would be fooled; for only the sign is for sale. -Kierkegaard When the only tool you own is a hammer, every problem begins to resemble a nail. -Maslow In the consciousness of the truth he has perceived, man now sees everywhere only the awfulness or the absurdity of existence and loathing seizes him. -Nietzsche Doubt is not a pleasant condition, but certainty is absurd. -Voltaire The pure and simple truth is rarely pure and never simple. -Wilde Whereof one cannot speak, thereon one must remain silent. -Wittgenstein The limits of my language are the limits of my mind. -Wittgenstein Meaning It was previously a question of finding out whether or not life had to have a meaning to be lived. It now becomes clear, on the contrary, that it will be lived all the better if it has no meaning. -Camus Colourless green ideas sleep furiously. -Chomsky What matters above all is the attitude we take toward suffering, the attitude in which we take our suffering upon ourselves. -Frankl There is nothing insignificant in the world. It all depends on how one looks at it. -Goethe If you think education is expensive, try ignorance. -Emma Goldman The deeper the experience of an absence of meaning -in other words, of absurdity- the more energetically meaning is sought. -Havel Beauty in things exists in the mind which contemplates them. -Hume We do what we are and we are what we do. -Maslow Less is more. -Mies Van der Rohe In the consciousness of the truth he has perceived, man now sees everywhere only the awfulness or the absurdity of existence... and loathing seizes him. -Neitzsche The time you enjoy wasting is not wasted time. -Russell Man is nothing else but what he makes of himself. -Sartre Consciousness is a being, the nature of which is to be conscious of the nothingness of its being. -Sartre The unexamined life is not worth living. -Socrates Sleep good. CD good. No sleep bad. No CD bad. -Southwind Only the shallow know themselves. -Wilde Religion Religion is an illusion of childhood, outgrown under proper education. -Comte I see only with deep regret that God punishes so many of His children for their numerous stupidities, for which only He Himself can be held responsible; in my opinion, only His nonexistence could excuse Him. -Einstein I am convinced that a vivid consciousness of the primary importance of moral principles for the betterment and ennoblement of life does not need the idea of a law-giver, especially a law-giver who works on the basis of reward and punishment. -Einstein I cannot imagine a God who rewards and punishes the objects of his creation, whose purposes are modeled after our own � a God, in short, who is but a reflection of human frailty. Neither can I believe that the individual survives the death of his body, although feeble souls harbor such thoughts through fear or ridiculous egotisms. -Einstein Death does not concern us, because as long as we exist, death is not here. And when it does come, we no longer exist. -Epicurus Hence today I believe that I am acting in accordance with the will of the Almighty Creator... I am fighting for the Lords work. -Adolf Hitler This human world of ours would be inconceivable without the practical existence of a religious belief. -Adolf Hitler Religion is the opiate of the masses. -Marx I daresay anything can be made holy by being sincerely worshipped. -Iris Murdoch Men never do evil so completely and cheerfully as when they do it from religious conviction. -Pascal He was a wise man who invented God. -Plato I do not pretend to be able to prove that there is no God. I equally cannot prove that Satan is a fiction. The Christian god may exist; so may the gods of Olympus, or of ancient Egypt, or of Babylon. But no one of these hypotheses is more probable than any other: they lie outside the region of even probable knowledge, and therefore there is no reason to consider any of them. -Russell The infliction of cruelty with a good conscience is a delight to moralists. That is why they invented Hell. -Russell Atheistic existentialism, of which I am a representative, declares with greater consistency that if God does not exist there is at least one being whose existence comes before its essence, a being which exists before it can be defined by any conception of it. That being is man.... -Sartre Existentialism isn't so atheistic that it wears itself out showing that God doesn't exist. Rather, it declares that even if God did exist, that would change nothing. -Sartre If you talk to God, you are praying; if God talks to you, you have schizophrenia. -Thomas Szasz Some people are so afraid to die that they never begin to live. -Henry Van Dyke If God did not exist, it would be necessary to invent him. -Votaire Religions die when they are proved to be true. Science is the record of dead religions. -Wilde Ethics/Morality Never trust the advice of a man in difficulties. -Aesop So long as we have failed to eliminate any of the causes of human despair, we do not have the right to try to eliminate those means by which man tries to cleanse himself of despair. -Antonin Artaud There can be no question of holding forth on ethics. I have seen people behave badly with great morality and I note every day that integrity has no need of rules. -Camus A man's ethical behavior should be based effectually on sympathy, education, and social ties; no religious basis is necessary. Man would indeed be in a poor way if he had to be restrained by fear of punishment and hope of reward after death. -Einstein I am convinced that a vivid consciousness of the primary importance of moral principles for the betterment and ennoblement of life does not need the idea of a law-giver, especially a law-giver who works on the basis of reward and punishment. -Einstein To accuse others for one's own misfortunes is a sign of want of education. To accuse oneself shows that one's education has begun. To accuse neither oneself nor others shows that one's education is complete. -Epictetus Adversity makes men, and prosperity makes monsters. -Victor Hugo There is...only a single categorical imperative and it is this: Act only on that maxim through which you can at the same time will that it should become a universal law. -Kant True guilt is guilt at the obligation one owes to oneself to be oneself. False guilt is guilt felt at not being what other people feel one ought to be or assume that one is. -R.D. Laing Be careful to trust a person, who does not like wine. -Marx Morality is the best of all devices for leading mankind by the nose. -Neitzsche Convictions are more dangerous enemies of truth than lies. -Nietzsche He who is not contented with what he has, would not be contented with what he would like to have. -Socrates Love is the child of illusion and the parent of disillusion. -Unamuno I can resist everything except temptation. -Wilde Happiness Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try Again. Fail again. Fail better. -Samuel Beckett But what is happiness except the simple harmony between a man and the life he leads. -Camus You will never be happy if you continue to search for what happiness consists of. You will never live if you are looking for the meaning of life. -Camus Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know. -Hemingway For in much wisdom is much grief: and he that increaseth knowledge increaseth sorrow. -Ecclesiastes 1:18 Sorrow is knowledge, those that know the most must mourn the deepest, the tree of knowledge is not the tree of life. -Lord Byron The reward of suffering is experience. -Aeschylus